Our grandparents stayed married until widowhood. Our parents stayed married because they were supposed to. Now half the kids entering kindergarten have divorced parents, it is no longer a stigma. What made our marriage last?
Here is my list of thoughts on what has kept us waking each morning in love and friendship, from my perspective of course.
- I can tell him anything and he listens and cares.
- He is someone who shares a history with me and remembers how far I have come as a person and rejoices in that.
- We are committed to being friends for life.
- He always has a kind word, a listening ear and honest compliment.
- He takes the 'it is what it is' in life and works with it.
- He often knows what I mean before I know what I mean... you know what I mean?
- It often crosses my mind to think, "I am so lucky".
- He shows me that life is not about waiting for a storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain, most specifically now that he struggles with Parkinson's.
- We lead a low-drama lifestyle. We do not feel the need to be who we aren't.
- I am the emotional one and Russ can 'wait out the storm'. That has flexed and flowed through the years, but we have made it work, mostly through his calm.
- I believe we have been realistic in understanding one another's strengths and weaknesses.
- Russ has always been a master at/with finances. We spend wisely and don't spend what we don't have. That has gifted us with security.
- For years we played tennis and skied together, shared activities.
- He makes each day, a day of gratefulness with his love, his care, his hugs & smiles, his welcome home greetings and his forgiveness.
I also believe that marriage is a journey and it will not always be 'the same'. Let me give you a visual.... have you ever known a woman who was successful in her 20s and 30s and wanted that success to last forever. I worked with a woman like this. She carried 'her visual self' into her elder years, wearing the same hair style and make-up. That requires a vast amount of hair coloring and make-up which gradually, on older, wrinkled skin and body looks a bit more like a clown mask than success. She couldn't age gracefully, she was caught in the Peter Pan Syndrome, not wanting or unable to evolve.
Marriages that do not evolve, fail. Russ and I have gradually emerged in maturity. This newest chapter with Parkinson's leading our lives, shows how adaptive we must be. With each new twist on our journey we try to dance, go with the flow and aim for 50 years!